


Food

by Esbe



Series: Sketches [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Mention of addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-19
Updated: 2016-01-19
Packaged: 2018-05-14 23:47:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5763562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Esbe/pseuds/Esbe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's all in the mind</p>
            </blockquote>





	Food

Mycroft is hungry. And the reason he knows this is because he is _imagining food_.

He always does that now. He either begins to imagine his favourite foods, their taste, aroma and texture, the temperature he likes them at, or he begins to see their preparation in full Technicolor. He is a good cook. He knows a large number of recipes by heart down to the exact measures of ingredients. Even though he doesn’t do any of that any more. But the imagining doesn’t stop. It’s his signal to stop working and eat.

Its been years really. He has stopped over eating. In fact nowadays he can do with less food and for far longer than even Sherlock. But he has never been one to abuse his body without reason nor has he been ever in any competition with his brother. So he seldom goes without food. But years ago he had realised his craving for food had become an addiction and a crutch.

So, in typical Holmesian fashion, he had gone to the opposite end of the spectrum. **He went cold turkey**. No, he didn’t starve himself but he didn’t slowly cut down on his intake either. No psychiatrists entered the equation either, just the one nutritionist. He simply found out what a man his age and height and race should weigh and measure in size. He found out the exact amount of calories that would take to maintain given his lifestyle. He got specific numbers for nutrition for a balanced healthy diet. Then he simply ensured that right that day onwards he had only so much and no more.

He worked from home for the first five days and that was it. No point harming national interests by having an ill timed meeting after all. It was torturous at first. His body would crave food. The pangs wouldn’t let him function. Those first few weeks he would get dizzy from lack of sugar. His body would have the most painful cramps. He would sweat and shiver and no amount of water and electrolytes seemed to help. There were long minutes when his mind would go blank. Those were the most terrifying. But he refused to excuse himself from work.

He knew that Anthea had had the medical on standby. He isn’t sure how much she revealed to them on _why_ they were needed, though. Now of course she has got it down pat. She ensures that his intake has the exact number of calories per day, the exact balance of various nutrients, the right amount of fluids. Whenever his work requires him to partake of food in the company of others, she quickly recalibrates and compensates in the meals to follow.

For all Sherlock’s taunts, Mycroft has exactly one ounce of cake/muffin/shortbread/scones a month. He hasn’t deviated from that even once since then. He is pretty sure that his brother suspects the truth and he is equally sure that some would diagnose him as having at least borderline OCD. But its not as simple as that. The control is not for controls sake alone. A man like him cannot afford pressure points. Sherlock already makes a very visible and vulnerable one.

Of course it is not that he no longer craves food, every junkie knows that the craving never stops, you simply learn to not give in. So now he simply imagines food.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm doing a ficlet after ages. The longer fics have completely taken over!  
> I don't know if this is a sketch. But somehow, in the current fic, I find myself writing more about Mycroft than writing Mycroft. So I'm paring off parts and positing them here instead. I see these as working copies of my head canon that need to be written so I can continue with the actual plot.
> 
> And yes, an ounce is about what a normal sized muffin would weigh.


End file.
